Oregon is famous for rainy weather, but that’s a tad unfair. Summers are clear, and if you head inland a ways the weather can be highly conducive for clear skies fairly often.

Oregon’s landscape is dramatic, too, and makes for a fine foreground if, say, you want to spend half a year compiling images to make a lovely time lapse video. Much like this one:

Did you see those weird and vaguely menacing clouds about 40 seconds in? Wow.

This video was made by Ben Canales, John Waller, Steve Engman, and Blake Johnson of Uncage the Soul Productions. I follow Ben on Google+, as I do a lot of other photographers — it makes my day a lot better to see amazing and beautiful pictures go by in the stream.

One of my favorite things to do while watching these time lapse videos of the night sky is to try to recognize constellations and individual stars. Orion is easy enough, but did you see Vega, Lyra, Delphinus, the Andromeda Galaxy? And did you notice how squashed the Sun looked as it rose, due to our atmosphere bending its light ?

Nice- I live and teach here, and it was good to see some familiar places. Winter does get bad- November to June we rarely have good skies in the Rogue Valley, but eastern Oregon is primarily sagebrush desert, and is in the rain shadow of the Cascades- great dark skies.

I was at Crater Lake briefly in the late 1940s or very early 1950s. The ranger’s discussion at the boat dock (south side) was interrupted by the hand-crank fire phone ringing. That turned out to be a long distance call from Hawaii for one of the visitors who was indeed there.

Being reached there from Hawaii would not be remarkable today–it indeed was then.

This is why I love living in Oregon. I spent two summers working at a summer camp near Three-Fingered Jack (that crag at 2:13). The absolute clear and dark skies really reignited by interest in astronomy.

When I read Phil’s post about the “vaguely menacing” clouds around the :40 mark, I was expecting to see some thunderheads piling up, but what I actually saw–though somewhat unusual in the Midwest where I currently reside–were neat, sinewy clouds that almost looked alive in time lapse. I’d have described them as “beautiful and lively” as opposed to threatening, though. (Not being mean nor antogonistically contrarian, by the way… it’s just interesting how people react differently to the same visual stimulus, no doubt based in part on each individual’s life experiences. I’m always cloud watching, perhaps even more than stargazing in recent years, so maybe that has something to do with my take on it…)

I’ve only ever been up the Oregon coastal highway so now I’d like to see the eastern side and the sagebrush desert–I really like deserts (I like the coast too, but I explore them often so deserts are a fascinating change). And there’s lava caves?! Cool…those are on my list to see now!

Absolutely beautiful, and tempting since I happened to be thinking today of places to travel next year.

The only thing missing from the video was a link to the Oregon tourism site or the Oregon equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger saying “Come to Calyforneeah!” Is there an Oregon equivalent of the Governator?

@ ^ Adam K. : Not sure but long & multiple exposures are involved I’m guessing. I found that effect quite different, dunno if I’m all that keen on that but it may grow on me.

Minor nitpick but, personally, I would’ve liked a little more night sky too – this seemed to jump a bit quickly from one thing to the next whereas I’d have liked it to linger on each scene more letting us revel in the scene and stars longer.

Couldn’t find Messier 31 alas, will have to look again – what time mark did that appear in please? Of course, the Oregon sky is upside down & somewhat unfamiliar to me as a Southern hemispherer! 😉

Still a great time lapse, BA, I always love these. Thanks. Oh & well done to Ben Canales, John Waller, Steve Engman, and Blake Johnson as well.

“Oregon is famous for rainy weather, but that’s a tad unfair. Summers are clear, and if you head inland a ways the weather can be highly conducive for clear skies fairly often.”

@BA: Hush, you!

Don’t believe him. It rains here all the time!

15. Bobco85 Says: “The only thing missing from the video was a link to the Oregon tourism site or the Oregon equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger saying “Come to Calyforneeah!” Is there an Oregon equivalent of the Governator?”

That would be Governor Tom McCall, famous for saying something like, “Visit Oregon, spend your money, then go home!”

Grew Up in Bend. Average elevation 3600 feet. 270 Clear days per year on average. Not a lot of rain ever. If you visit Eastern Oregon, Pine Mountain Observatory is a must see. There are places in East of Bend where there are no lights at all and you can see the most amazing views of the Milky Way. I have often wondered why we get these great pictures from around the world, but none from closer to home.
The only place that really sees all of that rain that we are famous for is the 60 mile wide strip from the coast to the Cascades.

A clue as to why there are so few astronomers in Oregon. Weird and vaguely menacing crowds. But sirius-ly… The clouds come in and stay for sometimes 30 days at a time, while the sky spits in your face. Once in 2001 it stopped raining and the sun was out everyday for 2 weeks, in February! The “meterologists” declared a drought, and the News anchor was heard to say “..lets get back to those beautiful skies that we all love and miss so much.” Its the opposite Of S.A.D.. One gets so used to the cloud cover that you feel naked without it. From mid Oregon north to Seattle the rock music is all “grunge”, outdoors is a “plunge” , with a locker room’s “scunge”, makes you feel like a “spunge”. Way Up in OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ray gone. I call it the Grate North Waste, In the north there’s P-Land or Poor Land or Pot-Land, just across the ribber from little Van-Cower, the Meth Addict capital in Washington State. The gay and Lesbians there aren’t ‘activists’ they’re Militant. its nutz there, hence the many squirrels.

Now as I unnerstan squirrels are grey and live on nuts, but I ‘ve seen some with big pink butts, up in the trees way up in Oregon.

You could step outside to pee and never be seen again, way up in Oregon.

Washington state isn’t too much different, as far as weather. one guess why their tallest peak is called “Rainier”, because when the explorers got back to civilization they asked that it be named so because they said “sure its cloudy and overcast alot here, but up there its much rainier.”